Why We Need to Make Space for Everyone When Talking About Abortion

How Aspen Baker's "pro-voice" movement makes space for all in this nation's most polarized conversation.

I've been in the room as they happened, reporting on the exact procedure from the cervical numbing to the extraction of the fetus. I've spoken to hundreds of women who have had them, and to many of their male partners as well — about their decision, about the process, about how it felt afterward, and how it feels now.

I've interviewed protesters and abortion providers, including one who told me she gave an abortion to a woman who she walked past daily, protesting outside her clinic.

I've heard many of the arguments for and against this procedure — which 1 in 3 women will get in her lifetime — but none have resonated with me as much as Aspen Baker's pro-voice philosophy.

Baker had an abortion when she was 24 and was astonished at how complex her feelings were leading up to it and afterward. She quickly learned that there was no safe space to share these feelings in our totally polarized political landscape around abortion rights. So she co-founded Exhale, a nonjudgmental after-abortion hotline, a safe place to call and say, "I had an abortion and I am: (fill in the blank as it pertains to you, such as, scared, relieved, suicidal or numb)." By doing that, she also created a space for stories, like every one I touched on above, to live.

Baker believes every woman has a right to tell her own story around abortion. And, as controversial as it sounds, so do men. Men can be upset or relieved. They can wish their partners had one or hadn't. But they don't get to have the final say in what a woman chooses to do. That is the individual woman's right. That's her story. That's her choice.

Baker has been developing her pro-voice approach, which she describes as "listening without judgment" for the last 15 years, since Exhale was founded. She just completed her first TEDWomen talk on the issue, and her book, Pro-Voice: How to Keep Listening When the World Wants a Fight will be published on Monday, June 1. In it, she chronicles the movement she began back in 2000 and the millions of lives it has touched since.

She begins her TEDWomen Talk with her own story. When she realized, at 24, that she was pregnant, she told her friend Polly. Baker grew up in a very Christian community and was scared that Polly would judge her. Instead, Polly replied, "I had an abortion." Before then, Baker had never spoken to anyone who had had one. "Polly gave me a special gift," Baker said. "That abortion is something we can talk about."

Fast-forward 14 years, and Baker found herself pregnant — this time she was excited by the prospect. "Never before in my life have I been asked by so many people, 'How are you feeling?'" Baker said from the TEDWomen stage. People regaled her with their own pregnancy stories and gave her loads of advice. But they also listened to her, which is what Baker wants everyone to do more of — around abortion, around sexual violence and discrimination, around poverty, around all the difficult topics out there. "Listening and storytelling are the hallmarks of pro-voice," Baker says. "It sounds easy — but it is very hard, especially when you are talking about something everyone else is fighting about."

But how to do this in our highly charged and emotional world?

Baker insists that it boils down to being a good listener. Here are her tips, which work for every highly charged issue, whether abortion, adoption, or gender or racial or any other kind of discrimination.

Ask open-ended questions, like, "How are you feeling? What was that like? What do you hope for now?"

Use reflective language: "If someone is talking about an abortion experience, and says 'baby', you can say 'baby' back," Baker explains. "When we reflect the language of the person telling the story, we are saying we support you."

If you do those two simple things, an amazing thing happens. "Empathy gets created the moment we imagine ourselves in someone else's shoes," Baker explains. "It does not mean we have to end up in the same place. It's not agreement, it's not sameness … It values what makes us human."

This is the heart of the pro-voice movement, one that includes everyone's experience, and one that I will both practice and preach. As Baker says in her closing remarks, "Pro-voice is contagious — the more it is practiced, the more it spreads."

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Cosmopolitan participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.